USA TODAY: UFC 155's Lauzon gets to live out IT workers' fantasies

Thirty fights into his professional mixed martial arts career, it would be understandable if self-professed computer nerd Joe Lauzon were eager to leave his information technology days behind. After all, in the testosterone-laden world of combat sports, network administrator chats aren’t exactly prevalent.

But Lauzon, a 28-year-old videogame enthusiast, social media maven and UFC lightweight contender, says the two worlds are more closely linked than you might think.

“I get tons of messages on Twitter from all these guys that are into IT stuff or are programmers or whatever,” he told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com).

“They all want to punch everyone at work, because in IT, when people need something, they’re freaking hounding you. When they don’t, they won’t even look in your direction.

“Their issue is always the most important thing. ‘This is the end of the world. This has to be done right now.’ It gets to the point where you want to strangle people. I think they all fantasize about, like, ‘Man, I would love to punch somebody.’ And I actually get to do it. I get to beat people up.”

Growing up in Massachusetts, Lauzon didn’t seem a prime candidate for a cage-fighting career. He admits he wasn’t much of an athlete but enjoyed a few seasons of baseball.

“But I kind of went through a growth spurt and played a few too many video games all at once, so my eyes got a little worse and my strike zone got way bigger, so it got a little tough to hit the ball,” Lauzon said.

So the 16-year-old turned to jiujitsu. In a way, it was love at first roll.

“I was pretty good at it right off the bat,” Lauzon said. “I was kind of a natural, and anytime you start something and you’re really good right off the bat, you automatically stick to it.”

Lauzon’s love for jiujitsu led to a passion for MMA, and at 19 he took his first pro fight. A few months after earning his degree in computer science, Lauzon was invited to the UFC.

“It shows a little bit of depth,” Lauzon said of his path to the octagon. “I think your typical guy in the UFC wrestled in college, was always a good athlete. … I really wasn’t.”

Yet in his six years in the UFC, Lauzon has proved to be one of the most exciting fighters in the sport, as shown by his 11 performance bonuses, second most in company history.

At Saturday’s UFC 155 event in Las Vegas, Lauzon (22-7 MMA, 9-4 UFC) again channels the collective anger of IT personnel everywhere as he looks to beat up Jim Miller (21-4 MMA, 10-3 UFC). The bout is the co-main event of the PPV broadcast (10 p.m. ET).

A win could do wonders for Lauzon’s positioning in the lightweight division and leave him on the cusp of title contention. Still, he remains true to his computer nerd roots.

“I’m a decent athlete now because I’ve been training at it for so long, but I really didn’t come from that type of lifestyle of being a badass wrestler since I was 6 years old,” Lauzon said. “My background shows I’m a little more than a meathead.”

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